On Saturday night, we noted re Alford that “they said it was a sprain but it looked worse” and we said to wait for confirmation. It was worse. Torn MCL and partially torn ACL. One of the original email guys (from the precursor to this blog, pre 2006) is an MD and said he was fairly confident it was a torn MCL. And he reminded me that they said the same thing about Osi before revealing the full extent of the injury.

Alford is not a loss on the scale of Osi Umenyiora. But this is the first MAJOR injury of 2009. Remember, DL is not like any other unit. Every person on the roster who is on the DL is a starter. Everyone. They ALL play. Every time you see tongues hanging out it in the Q4, every time you see Osi or Tuck on the sidelines wondering why they are there.. it is because these guys get exhausted getting pounded on by 325 lb. linemen and then chasing after QBs play after play for 60 minutes. So Alford is a big loss.

We also found out yesterday that Canty’s injury is a hamstring tear. This from the DL who has not missed a single game in his 4 year career. It is worth noting that the 3 prime (high profile) free agent signings of Boley, Canty and Bernard have not yielded a single snap so far. Bernard is on the mend and Coughlin hopes that he’ll get practice and minutes this Saturday night, but this is not like any of them are “game ready.”

Coughlin and Motown (last night) remind us we are not deep anymore at DL. How true. Alford: season-ending IR? Not the DL roster solution we were looking for.

One more item.. Alford was a long snapper, so this makes Zak DeOssie’s chances for a roster spot significantly greater. After all, who else on this team is a long snapper?! DeOssie did not add anything to our LB corp, so we were quietly hoping he would not make the squad so that another LBer would.